Children at School No. 13 in Slaviansk hide from artillery fire on May 28, 2014. The school building was hit by a mortar shell. (RIA Novosti / Andrey Stenin) / RIA Novosti

A school and a kindergarten have been shelled in Slavyansk as the city becomes increasingly unsafe in the intensified Kiev military campaign. At least 9 civilians were injured in Wednesday’s shelling incidents, including a child.

Ukrainian mortar shells have for weeks been raining down on the
checkpoints and positions of the Slavyansk self-defense, but much
of the shelling occurred outside the city. Italian journalist
Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter, veteran human
rights activist Andrey Mironov, were almost “torn to pieces” in one such
shelling.

However, this week the battleground apparently moved right into
civilian quarters of Slavyansk, as shells started hitting
residential blocks and nearby buildings, killing three people on Monday.

On Wednesday, there was a shocking reminder of how the situation
might unfold if the likely president-elect Petro Poroshenko
pushes on with the military operation in the region, as shells
struck the city’s streets, yards, a school and a kindergarten.

RT talked to a male schoolteacher from Slavyansk school number
13, who asked not to be named.

“Around midday there was a loud explosion in the school, and
I fell to the floor, taking cover,” the teacher told RT over
the phone.

The man said that he rushed to the corridor to assemble all the
teachers and children in the school and take them to a safe
place. Clouds of dust were billowing on one side of the building.

According to the teacher, it turned out that the shell exploded
right above the school hall, where children are usually gathered
for festive events, and part of the roof “was simply blown
away.”

Luckily, no children were in the hall at the time. All the pupils
and teachers were quickly evacuated to the basement.

It was not immediately clear, if there were any casualties in the
kindergarten or other places shelled in Slavyansk, but the
Rossiya-24 channel reported that 9 people were injured in total,
including a 4-year-old boy. The channel’s crew narrowly escaped a
direct hit by a mortar shell, as it fell “literally next to
our car.”

Photos of the sites of Wednesday’s mortar attacks emerged on
social media, showing partially destroyed buildings, craters in
the roads, and what appeared to be blood.

The Kiev forces quickly laid the blame on self-defense units,
which they refer to as “terrorists.”

“Currently, we are confirming the information on the
terrorists’ shelling of the residential quarters and the
territory of the school in Slavyansk,” the commander of
Kiev’s military operation in southeastern Ukraine, Vladislav
Seleznyov, wrote on his Facebook page.

Meanwhile, several funerals of those killed in Monday’s shelling
were held in Slavyansk on Wednesday. According to the latest
reports, four people have died from shrapnel wounds since then.

The shelling damaged a block of flats and a dormitory in the
city’s teachers’ college, shattering glass in the windows of the
college. Power lines and, reportedly, a city water pipeline were
damaged and disrupted by the blasts.

While the Kiev authorities keep asserting that the military
action in the southeast is meant to protect the people against
“terrorists,” many people on the ground in Slavyansk
have a directly opposite opinion on the issue.

“We are simply horrified – you see? Horrified that our 'brave
army,' which we pay taxes to maintain, is [doing] nothing else
but destroying us. And our president, who must protect the
civilian population – he is determined to exterminate us,” a
woman working at the damaged school no. 13 told RT’s Ruptly news
agency.

“For some reason, they think that we here in Slavyansk are
all terrorists,” the woman said.